12/12/22 Mount Pleasant Bulletin

[jimallen]

Hi, here is the Mount Pleasant bulletin of 12 December. This will be our last bulletin of the year, we'll restart in January. We wish everybody a happy strike-filled Xmas and a very much prosperous New Year!

THE MORE THE MERRIER
It was great to see the huge mobilisation at our strike/rally
in Parliament Square on Friday! Workmates came
all the way from Scotland - and from all around the
country! Maybe up to 15,000 according to the union…
So all good. Mick Lynch of the rail workers' union spoke,
but the railway workers were not on strike with us - so we
couldn't help thinking how much bigger and better the
rally could have been if all the other sectors of workers
were there with us… And how much much more
threatening that would have been to the bosses and MPs
sitting in their offices nearby!

MEET THE NEXT BOSS, SAME AS THE OLD BOSS
But then there was that main slogan offered to us by the
union leadership: "Thompson Out!" That wasn't so
great. Previously, they demanded "Rico Back out!"… and
in came Thompson. Do they expect a "nice" boss one of
these days?? Not a word, however, about the real issue
of renationalisation and banishing all these profit-chasing
bosses for good!

DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!
Thompson has asserted in his latest "Letter to customers"
(9th December) that "We have a generous voluntary
redundancy scheme and are NOT making compulsory
redundancies". Of course he would say that. For us a
redundancy is a redundancy - it's a job cut by another
name - and if there is no replacement on exactly the
same terms and conditions, it is unacceptable full stop.

THE PREDICTABLE PARROTS!
The media, including BBC, GMB and Sky came down to
the Mount on Friday - and they always ask the same
thing: why are we on strike when there's a good offer on
the table?! Of course, they just repeat what the company
tells them without even troubling themselves to find out
what the truth is. The journalist from the BBC went first
to Jay Brooks (Baby Boss) and then repeated like a parrot
his views on the picket line when she was interviewing
us! But we're used to this...

MAKE THEM PAY!
We have the unpleasant feeling that union officials are
going along with the 9% pay offer... Dave Ward came
outside the Mount and told reporters that he "would
probably find a settlement on that figure" only if it is "a
proper 9%, fully backdated". Does that mean over a 12
months or 18 months? Now, the latest RPI inflation rate
is 14.2% - so are we meant to accept a "proper" real 8%
pay cut? When prices are skyrocketing? No way!

GROW UP!
A couple of weeks ago, Baby Boss came to the shop floor
to try to bribe us into taking "VR", saying that if we signed
before 27 November for the EVR they're offering now -
which is 9 month's wage max - we'd get an extra £6,000.
Of course, this would mean barely a year's worth of
wages, which is still very far from the 2-year package
they used to offer. But to come down to bribe us into
their lesser VR terms in the middle of the dispute, that's
simply contemptible.

BRING THEM BACK NOW!
What is happening with our 2 workmates who were
suspended by management? They have nothing to
answer for so why are they not back yet by our side?

ONE ON, ONE OFF
Can anyone tell us what's going on with our RM-PFS
dispute? We were told last minute that our strike was not
going ahead, apparently because "some progress had
been made". But what progress? As far as we're
concerned, anything below RPI inflation won't be good
enough! But we need to be informed!
PS: We're told our next strike day is 15 December,
together with our postal workmates. Good! It's better
than striking on our own...

GIVE ZERO-HOUR CONTRACTS, GET ZERO HOURS!
Managers' efforts to bring in casuals to cover during the
strikes, aren't that successful. When we were on strike 26
November, apparently in some areas only about half of
the casuals turned up. Partly, at least, because of the
train drivers' strike the same day which prevented them
from getting there! But maybe also because they didn't
want to strike break...

CAN'T MOVE FOR PARCELS!
Even when us casuals do make it in, we can't get much
done! Last week, for example, the floor was so full of
parcels and yorks, there was nowhere to put the sorted
work, so we had no choice, but to stop work...

HEADLESS AND BRAINLESS
What a wonderful Xmassy mayhem on letters... We
wonder if it is worse this year compared to previous
years? Usually, we see managers trying to cope with the
workload, running around like headless chickens. They
want to blame the strike but they have only themselves
to blame for the lack of hands. Yeah they refuse to make
part-timers full-time, for instance. So good luck with the
mess!

AS EXPECTED...
Oh dear, the chaos on the shop floor by the bullrings is
incredible. We knew very well that the space between
them and the Parcel Sorting Machine wasn't wide
enough for when the Yorks traffic gets busy... no one
needs to be a clever architect to know that! But of
course, when management implements "new
technology", we know we'll witness a succession of utter
cock-ups.

SHE'S ONLY GOT TWO HANDS
It's happened again: the lone canteen worker on nights
has gone on holiday and is replaced by two people! So
why is she left on her own for the rest of the time?
Makes absolutely no sense, and needs rectifying ASAP!